


No Remedy for the Memory

by Violet_Janou



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Other, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violet_Janou/pseuds/Violet_Janou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John doesn't know for how much longer he can live knowing that Sherlock is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Remedy for the Memory

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the Lana Del Rey Song "Dark Paradise"   
> The title is also taken from a line in the song as well.   
> feed back is much loved

221b Baker Street was my home. It would always be my home. Even if I didn’t not live there. It was too hard. It was hard enough going back there each and every day. Trying to find peace. This bloody peace that everyone around me had seemed to find after his death. Where was _my_ peace? I wanted the peace that everyone around me had or was pretending to have for my sake. It was better than the hell I was living in now.  

 

I had been given books about grief. I knew that seven stages. I am a bloody doctor, but people seemed to forget that. They just saw me as the grieving widow. The mourning partner. I didn’t want them to pity me. But I had no choice; it was the way the world worked. I didn’t need the books to tell me about grief. I didn’t need the therapist; I was forced to see by my sister and those around me, to tell me. I knew. I knew them all.

 

You have the first stage: shock and denial. It was hard to be in denial when you see your mate; your best mate throws himself off a building. _Keep your eyes fixed on me_. Those words, his words haunt me in my sleep. I remember him reaching out, his long fingers trying to tell me that everything was going to be okay. My hand reaching up as if instinct to tell him that I was there. Shock. I had grown immune to Shock. After living with a man who tells people he is a sociopath, keeps body parts in the refrigerator and gets off on crimes, there are few things in the world that can shock you. I feel more confusion than anything. That confusion never seemed to leave. No matter how hard I tried, it was there in the back of my head.  

 

Stage two: pain and guilt. That I had. Pain. It’s a funny word; I have experienced a lot of pain before. Pain in the war when I got shot. Praying, if there was a god out there that I wouldn’t die. Pain from where I did hurt my leg (but the limp was only a temporary condition). But this pain, gowd I had never felt pain like this. My chest more than just hurt. It was this constant pressure, feeling that with every breath I took was one more than Sherlock. That I was living longer than this mad man… this brilliant mad man. To close my eyes, I just see these waves come over my body. I feel heavy. I feel weak and most of all I feel helpless. And that I am still helpless. I couldn’t help him, I couldn’t save him. That was my one and only bloody job; to shave Sherlock Holmes. Save him from what? Himself, drugs, killers, his brother, his boredom. I guess all of those things. This is when the guilt begins to kick in. Thinking of all that I could have done to save him. But you can’t really save a man like that. I thought that I could, and I thought that I had… but I had failed.

 

Stage three: Anger and bargaining. I had anger through the first two steps. This step, I feel there was more anger and frustration toward what had happened. It first stated off me being angry at Sherlock. I would come to the flat. Yell, curse at him, I would throw his bloody papers around because none of it mattered anymore. Or I wish that none of it matter anymore. Once that anger began to subside, I was now angry with myself. With how I was stupid. How I could have helped. _You listen but you don’t pay attention_. He would always say that to me. To everyone. God he was bloody right. If I had paid better attention I would have been able to help him. I was stupid, I was so worried about his name getting butchered that I forgot about him. And what he needed.

 

Stage four: Depression, reflection, loneliness. I go to the clinic once a week. Sarah is okay with that. She understands in her own way. I had to take another flat. I couldn’t live at 221b. It held to many memories, ones that I couldn’t bear to think about all at once. That’s why I come back. I will come, make two cups of tea. Let one get cold while I drink mine. I can hear the violin. I can smell when he would secretly smoking. Though, I know he knew. He was happy when I didn’t say anything. Though I put up a front, I didn’t mind when he smoked. The smell of something burning, or a rotting body part. It all was there, while most of the smells were locked in my memory I knew that they were there. Sherlock and I had time together that was unlike anything that I had experienced in my life.  He saved me. And I just let him die. He changed my life. He didn’t see me as a solider. Someone you look on and have this unnatural pity for them. He saw me as John Watson. Doctor John Watson with a fake limp, an alcoholic sister and a life needing repair. This man had such an impact on my life; I shot someone so he would live without knowing him for more than 48 hours. Crazy to some. To me it was more. Each day, and each case we did we grew closer. I began to understand his language. Both verbal and nonverbal. The cues he had when he wanted me to follow, or when he would say something that was no proper, he would look up at me and he would know. We could talk with our eyes. But there was something more. Or there could have been more. Sherlock never talked about sex. He had made it clear when we met. _I consider myself married to my work_. I was okay with that. I considered myself as a straight man. We never did anything. But there was this feeling- this tethered feeling I had to this man. He would run, I would follow. He would bark out orders for me to send a text I would obey. We had this idea of a domestic life together without really talking about it. But I know we could have had more. This that we shared while only in our flat, the looks we gave each other at certain times. The sheer fact that Sherlock had taken to me like he did was astonishing to people. He had no one else in his life. _I was his work_. I knew this. But when I figured it out, he was falling off a building and my legs were frozen. Loneliness is a funny one. I was alone a lot after the war. Coming back and trying to adjust to life where people have no idea what you have seen or what you have done. And if you told them they would look at you with disgust and shame. But this loneliness was different. It was heavier. When I got back to war there were soldier’s I could talk to. I didn’t, but they were there. There is no support group entitled, ‘group for people who lost their flat mat after he jumped off a building before you got to tell them you loved them’. If there was such a group, I still wouldn’t go. They wouldn’t know the level of emotion that went into dealing with Sherlock. At one moment you wanted to yell at him for a bloody experiment he was performing on you without you knowing it, and the next I would want to run my hands through his black, thick hairs of curls. Neither would I ever be able to do again.

 

Stage five: the upward turn.

 

Stage six: reconstruction and working through.

 

Stage seven: acceptance and hope.

 

I have yet to reach these. But I doubt that I ever will. There is no working through what I saw. I held his wrist, there was no pulse. There is no accepting what I saw. He was dead. I did nothing bust stand there like an arse and watch. Like I was watching someone do a bloody magic trick. I looked down to see my hands white knuckled as I gripped the chair arms. People don’t understand.

 

Not Molly.

 

Not Lestrade.

 

Not Mycroft.

 

Not Ms. Hudson.

 

Not Sally.

 

Not Anderson.

 

Not Mike.

 

Not Harry.

 

Not Sarah.

 

No one.

 

I’m alone. It’s funny. Really, I keep bringing myself back to this place. I find what I need for the time I need it. Looking up at the black door I take my right hand and run it over the letters. 221b. the steps are familiar under my feet. Mrs. Hudson doesn’t bother me anymore when I come here anymore. I walk up the steps, skipping some. My hand pushed against the flat door. As it opens I smile, looking around I see the couch, the two chairs, the skull, everything. Nothing has changed nothing will ever change. I take a deep breath and I go and sit down in my chair. Looking across I see Sherlock sitting in his pajamas, his dressing down around him as he has his knee’s pulled up to his chest, his hands in the prayer pose as he thinks. I can look over at the window, and there he is, holding the violin with such delicate hands. If I try hard enough I can hear the music, the glorious music of a master of everything. I can look at the couch, a smile creeps onto my face. He see him laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling thinking. We didn’t talk all the much when he was thinking, but we didn’t need to.

 

This is the only place where I can sleep. In my new flat I wake up every night from a dream. No an nightmare. My body drenched in sweat as I cry. I know people say that they get tired of crying after someone they love dies. I don’t think I will even stop crying over Sherlock’s death. When I come back here I can sleep. Not for a long time but I feel his presence around me. I’m at peace for once. Though that peace is fleeing for when I wake up the weight of the sadness is upon me again. Getting up I walk over and put my hand on the wall tracing the yellow paint that Sherlock sprayed on the wall in a smiley face. Why he would do that is beyond me. Than then I trace over the gunshots. “You and your damn boredom.” I hissed as I fell onto the couch.

 

I’ve thought many times to end my life. In many different ways. There were enough chemicals for me to kill the entire army I was in. I knew what medicine would make of overdose and die. No pain. I knew where Sherlock kept his needles, and drugs. I could hang myself. But the one that I was battling the most was shooting myself. It would be easy. Hold it up to my temple, pull the trigger and _Blackness_. I would be gone. I wouldn’t suffer; I would be a burden to those around me. Though they never said it. I knew they were thinking it. The looks.

 

The same looks I got when I was back from the war.

 

_You can’t do that John_. His voice always stopped me. _It’s messy, and imagine the fit Ms. Hudson would throw_. I set the gun on the coffee table. Putting my hands over my eyes. _See, now you’re not being as big of an idiot as Anderson_. I snickered. I never understood why he hated Anderson. Sally, sure she was a bitch. _Don’t be an idiot._

 

“I am an idiot.” I said. Out loud. As if he was there with him. I could feel his presence. His tall slender body pacing around, his dressing coat floating behind him. _No, I’m the idiot. You told me that after you shot the cabbie for you. You said, ‘you were going to take the damn pill because you’re an idiot’ you need to know these things John._

 

“I love you Sherlock.” I always said this. Why. It was safe now. No one could hear me. He couldn’t hear me. I didn’t have to be afraid of the fear of him rejecting me. My love. My emotions. _I love you to John_.  Every time those five words stop me. The day I stop hearing those words that’s when I will know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> All my friends tell me I should move on / I'm lying in the ocean, singing your song / Ahhh, that's how you sang it / Loving you forever, can't be wrong / Even though you're not here, won't move on / Ahhh, that's how we played it  
>   
>  And there's no remedy for memory your face is / Like a melody, it won't leave my head / Your soul is haunting me and telling me / That everything is fine / But I wish I was dead  
>   
>  Everytime I close my eyes / It's like a dark paradise / No one compares to you / I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side / Everytime I close my eyes / It's like a dark paradise / No one compares to you / I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side  
>   
>  All my friends ask me why I stay strong / Tell 'em when you find true love it lives on / Ahhh, that's why I stay here  
>   
>  And there's no remedy for memory your face is / Like a melody, it won't leave my head / Your soul is haunting me and telling me / That everything is fine / But I wish I was dead  
>   
>  Everytime I close my eyes / It's like a dark paradise / No one compares to you / I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side / Everytime I close my eyes / It's like a dark paradise / No one compares to you  
>   
>  But that there's no you, except in my dreams tonight, / Oh oh oh, ha ha ha  
>  I don't wanna wake up from this tonight / Oh oh oh, ha ha ha / I don't wanna wake up from this tonight  
>   
>  There's no relief, I see you in my sleep / And everybody's rushing me, but I can feel you touching me / There's no release, I feel you in my dreams / Telling me I'm fine  
>   
>  Everytime I close my eyes / It's like a dark paradise / No one compares to you / I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side / Everytime I close my eyes / It's like a dark paradise / No one compares to you  
>   
>  But that there's no you, except in my dreams tonight, / Oh oh oh, ha ha ha  
>  I don't wanna wake up from this tonight / Oh oh oh, ha ha ha / I don't wanna wake up from this tonight
> 
>  
> 
> **Dark Paradise**
> 
> **Lana del Rey**
> 
> **Born To Die** ****


End file.
